miorio wrote:The question has come up in Bishopric meeting as to whether any member of the Bishopric could sign a welfare check on restrict that to the Bishop alone

As with all expenditures, the Bishop must personally approve each check used for welfare assistance. But the actual signatures on the check can come from any authorized signer (except that no one may sign a welfare check that benefits himself or his family).

Details are in Handbook 1, where you will find the requirement that the Bishop must approve each expense, but you will not find any statement that the bishop must personally sign any check.

Questions that can benefit the larger community should be asked in a public forum, not a private message.

We are encouraged to operate a budget and so expenses for activities etc would already have been approved in principle and the counsellors would be paying for something that is already agreed. The Bishop would not need to sign the cheque but would approve the expense on the summary.

Welfare expenses are not normally planned in advance and so they would need the Bishops authorisation at that time. Having said that there will be occasions when a welfare need can be forseen and the counsellors can be authorised by the Bishop to sign the cheque.